5. Maeve #2
“It is not faith.” I keep my voice cold. “Faith requires trust, and Declan murdered that years ago. I am offering you logic. If you find it unfamiliar, Elena may be able to prepare a diagram.”
Elena hides a smile by looking at the screen.
Adrianos does not bother hiding his. Declan turns his head toward me, and the slight movement is more intimate than gratitude.
He does not need me to defend him, which makes defending the truth more important.
My innocence cannot depend on his guilt, and his guilt cannot be manufactured merely because his hands carried out the killings.
Whoever corrupted the system understood Declan perfectly.
Give him evidence stamped with Crown authority, point him toward a traitor, and his loyalty would do the rest. They did not steal his blade. They convinced him where to drive it.
Lorenzo looks between Declan and me. “You recognised problems in the records before Keane contacted you. Explain how.”
“I worked as a logistics and compliance analyst within the Gallagher shipping network.” I rise and approach the screen because facts are easier to deliver when I am not sitting beneath five judgments.
“Our legitimate operations provided cover for Irish transport routes, warehouse leases, customs documentation, and shell companies. I reviewed manifests against insurance declarations, port records, and internal movement orders. I could not access complete assassination files, but I saw the logistics attached to them. Safe vehicles, temporary properties, surveillance equipment, false cargo, and disposal routes all leave financial tracks.”
Elena replaces the approval diagram with a collection of shipping records from the encrypted drive.
I point to three manifests linked to an execution conducted nine years ago.
One claims medical equipment moved through Belfast. Another records industrial chemicals arriving in Dublin.
A third shows a refrigerated vehicle hired through a Gallagher subsidiary.
Separately, each transaction appears ordinary.
Together, they form the support structure of a killing.
The trouble lies in the dates. The emergency intelligence states that the target arrived in Ireland four days before Declan killed him, but the vehicle was reserved three weeks earlier.
The safe property was leased before the requesting faction supposedly discovered the threat.
Someone prepared the operation before the intelligence used to justify it existed.
“I raised the discrepancy with my supervisor.” I enlarge the dates until no one at the table can pretend not to see them.
“He told me Crown work followed a separate timetable and ordered me to close the review. Two weeks later, he disappeared. His resignation was processed through a company he had never worked for, and his personnel file was removed. After that, I began keeping copies.”
Declan watches me from across the room. “You never told me.”
“You were the man signing the orders.” Old anger moves beneath my ribs, but I refuse to let it steer.
“At the time, I did not know whether you were being deceived or whether you were part of it. Then evidence appeared proving I had sold Crown routes to federal agents, and an execution order arrived bearing your authority. Your final contribution to our relationship was promising to kill me yourself. Forgive me for failing to schedule a meeting.”
He absorbs the blow without looking away.
Regret does not soften him. It makes him appear more dangerous, because Declan treats guilt like an enemy that can be punished if he finds the correct throat.
The other kings study him, waiting to see whether he will deny the threat.
He does not. That honesty matters more than an excuse would, though I resent the part of me still capable of measuring his worth.
Seven years ago, his refusal to question an authenticated order cost him his son’s childhood.
Now the same obedience may have cost seven people their lives.
The Crown forged Declan into its executioner, then someone learned how to grip the handle.
Elena opens another file from Keane’s drive. “Maeve’s records gave us a pattern. I searched pending Irish execution orders for the same timing discrepancies, shell-company overlap, and concealed override. There is one active match.”
A photograph appears on the screen. Thomas Keane is older than the last time I saw him, his brown hair nearly grey and his face narrowed by years spent looking over his shoulder.
Beneath the photograph, the order lists him as a former Crown intelligence analyst suspected of selling financial data, faction identities, and protected routes to federal investigators.
Supporting documents include intercepted messages, offshore payments, and surveillance photographs.
Every page looks complete. Every seal appears genuine.
At the bottom sits Declan’s approval, entered at eight fourteen that morning, hours before he intercepted me at the airport.
My mouth goes dry. “When is the execution scheduled?”
“At midnight tonight.” Elena highlights the operational line.
“The request appears to originate from Lorenzo’s intelligence office, but Lorenzo’s genuine submission concerned a customs officer at the Port of Newark.
The two packages share a transaction number.
Someone inserted Keane’s file into the verified channel and diverted the original request before it reached Declan. ”
Lorenzo’s face hardens. “I have never heard of Thomas Keane.”
Declan looks at the clock on the wall. “Cancel the order and recall the team.”
“I already attempted both.” Elena brings up a red error notice.
“The order was accepted through an offline protocol designed for emergencies in which Crown communications might be monitored. Once the assigned team authenticates independently, cancellation requires a verbal counter-order from the approving king using a location-specific response phrase. The response phrase is stored inside the Irish verification file, and that section has been scrubbed.”
Adrianos closes the laptop in front of him. “We cannot contact the team through ordinary channels without alerting whoever controls the override. We also do not know Keane’s current location. The address in the file is a staging point, not the execution site.”
Declan rises. “Then we find the team before midnight.”
Lorenzo orders his people to coordinate with Elena while Adrianos begins tracing the altered payment chain.
Volkov contacts his surveillance network, and Santiago reluctantly offers access to cartel-controlled cameras along the routes leading from the staging address.
The meeting fractures into smaller arguments beneath the pressure of the clock.
Declan pulls Callum into a secure call and demands the names of every operative cleared for offline assignments.
No one discusses whether the assassin might already be moving toward Thomas.
They do not need to. Death has always been the Crown’s most efficient employee.